<h1 id="title">The Phoenix & Turtle</h1>


<section class="stanza">
  <p>Let the bird of loudest lay,</p>
  <p>On the sole Arabian tree,</p>
  <p>Herald sad and trumpet be,</p>
  <p>To whose sound chaste wings obey.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>But thou shrieking harbinger,</p>
  <p>Foul precurrer of the fiend,</p>
  <p>Augur of the fever’s end,</p>
  <p>To this troop come thou not near.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>From this session interdict</p>
  <p>Every fowl of tyrant wing,</p>
  <p>Save the eagle, feath’red king;</p>
  <p>Keep the obsequy so strict.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Let the priest in surplice white,</p>
  <p>That defunctive music can,</p>
  <p>Be the death-divining swan,</p>
  <p>Lest the requiem lack his right.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>And thou treble-dated crow,</p>
  <p>That thy sable gender mak’st</p>
  <p>With the breath thou giv’st and tak’st,</p>
  <p>’Mongst our mourners shalt thou go.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Here the anthem doth commence:</p>
  <p>Love and Constancy is dead,</p>
  <p>Phoenix and the Turtle fled</p>
  <p>In a mutual flame from hence.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>So they loved as love in twain</p>
  <p>Had the essence but in one,</p>
  <p>Two distincts, division none:</p>
  <p>Number there in love was slain.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Hearts remote, yet not asunder;</p>
  <p>Distance and no space was seen</p>
  <p>’Twixt this Turtle and his queen:</p>
  <p>But in them it were a wonder.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>So between them love did shine,</p>
  <p>That the Turtle saw his right</p>
  <p>Flaming in the Phoenix’ sight;</p>
  <p>Either was the other’s mine.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Property was thus appalled,</p>
  <p>That the self was not the same;</p>
  <p>Single nature’s double name</p>
  <p>Neither two nor one was called.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Reason, in itself confounded,</p>
  <p>Saw division grow together,</p>
  <p>To themselves yet either neither,</p>
  <p>Simple were so well compounded:</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>That it cried, “How true a twain</p>
  <p>Seemeth this concordant one!</p>
  <p>Love hath reason, Reason none,</p>
  <p>If what parts, can so remain.”</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Whereupon it made this threne</p>
  <p>To the Phoenix and the Dove,</p>
  <p>Co-supremes and stars of love,</p>
  <p>As chorus to their tragic scene.</p>
</section>

<h2 class="subtitle">Threnos</h2>


<section class="stanza">
  <p>Beauty, Truth, and Rarity,</p>
  <p>Grace in all simplicity,</p>
  <p>Here enclos’d, in cinders lie.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Death is now the Phoenix’ nest,</p>
  <p>And the Turtle’s loyal breast</p>
  <p>To eternity doth rest.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Leaving no posterity,</p>
  <p>’Twas not their infirmity,</p>
  <p>It was married chastity.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>Truth may seem, but cannot be,</p>
  <p>Beauty brag, but ’tis not she,</p>
  <p>Truth and Beauty buried be.</p>
</section>

<section class="stanza">
  <p>To this urn let those repair</p>
  <p>That are either true or fair;</p>
  <p>For these dead birds sigh a prayer.</p>
</section>

